solar pillars

a renga

You’re likely familiar with the haiku: 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. A tanka has two more lines of 7 syllables each. A renga is a collaborative tanka: one voice writes a haiku, another responds with the two extra lines. My family sat down with milk and cookies to write some rengas in-the-round. We each wrote a haiku on a sheet of paper, passed it to the left, and added a two-line response. Included with permission:

Solar pillars flame
against the night sky waves dance
glow, burn, red and green
cold wind, dogs whine, looking north
joyful, hand in hand, nights warm.

Blurrily viewed skies,
dim hazy color, darn this
disability.
Perhaps there wasn’t much there
for us to see anyway.

Cut across the sky
dripping blood our sight to see
how does the sky feel?
warm with tears that trickle down?
or cooled release of healing?

Easy-peasy. All you have to do is find a partner and count syllables.

Want to try one with me? I’ll start. Comment with your own two lines of 7 syllables.

November sunlight
streams in gentle zephyrs—frost
follows in its wake